Two men stood up from what appeared to be luxurious plane seats and collected their belongings from the compartments above them. Neither of the men spoke but it was obvious they were travelling together. They looked a lot older than the last time she had seen them. The taller of the two had started going grey slightly in the longish hair covering his ears. The shorter man's face had gotten more chiseled. Both men still appeared to be fond of dark clothing. She followed them down the plane isle and out of the doors into what Mai now recognised as the international terminal in Tokyo. The clock on the arrival and departure board stated that it was 4:55 pm on 8 May 20xx.

So they're coming back to Japan. Mai Taniyama thought as she blinked back the vision that had blinded her sight briefly. She no longer fell unconscious when they occurred which was a good thing or she'd end up sleeping the day and night away. They happened on a fairly regular basis these days and didn't always have anything to do with whatever action she was making or the items she was touching.

Interesting. It's been a long time. She finished rinsing off the bowl that she had been washing after dinner and placed it in the rack next to the sink to drain. Glancing at the calendar next to her refrigerator, she noted that it was still April. She had a couple of weeks to prepare and decide how this would impact her. She wasn't sure if she was ready to see them or any of the others yet. It had been 10 years since she'd seen any of them after all.

Mai sighed and leaned back against the kitchen counter. I assume this means Naru plans to reopen SPR. The emotions she felt over this were complicated. There was some small amount of happiness that the two men who had changed her life completely at the age of 15 were back in the same country that she lived in. But the main emotions flashing in her eyes looked to be sadness, anger and a little bit of resentment. Her eyes were that only sign of those emotions however.

Mai had long ago learnt to keep her face bland and avoid showing her emotions. It was too draining having to come up with excuses for why her once expressive face randomly showed fear or disgust at the oddest times to the people she worked with. It was easier to keep such emotions to herself. It was a skill that had certainly given her an advantage in her line of work. As did her visions. Solving cold cases didn't usually have a lot of leads to go on after all. The research and investigation skills that she had learnt while working at SPR had transferred quite easily to solving those difficult puzzles that had left the original homicide detectives stumped. Mai owed a lot to those three short years that she had worked for Naru as his assistant.

Glancing at the clock, Mai decided she had time to check her emails and do some more research into the current cold case she was working on and left her kitchen, turning right in her hallway and into the office placed in the middle on the left. She flipped the lid of her laptop open and waited for the window to load to the log in screen. Pressing her index finger lightly to the touch pad, the window flashed its recognition of her finger print and loaded the home screen where she preceded to open her emails.

One new email stood out and gained Mai's interest. A friend in missing persons had a case where some very concerned parents were asking for help to find their missing teenage daughter. The girl had been missing for a week now and all leads so far had come to a dead end. Apparently the teen had a responsible and reliable nature so running away was not a character trait to be expected of her. The cop, who knew of Mai's talents, often sent her similar requests when he suspected foul play and had nothing to go on. Mai typed a quick response to let him know that she'd be in first thing in the morning to see if she could see anything.

Nothing else in her emails held her interest so Mai closed her emails and logged into the online police database to research the case she had selected earlier that afternoon to work on.

The 34 year old wife of a local business man had disappeared in the early hours of a Sunday morning about 15 years ago and had never been found. She had left behind two boys, aged 3 and 5 years, sound asleep in their beds. The detective at the time had found specks of chemically diluted blood under a decorative carpet mat located in the living room but hadn't been able to confirm or deny that it was the wife's blood or find any other evidence of foul play. Nor had he able to break the husband's alibi of being out of town at the time of the investigation. It had been a neighbour the following Monday evening who had heard the crying children and come to investigate the reason that had alerted the police to the wife's disappearance.

Mai spent the next few hours researching the husband's activities from the year before his wife's disappearance until now along with the neighbourhood crime reports taken around that time to see if she found any patterns or connections. She would make appointments with the husband and sons tomorrow to see what her own skills would bring up.

At around 11 pm, Mai held back a yawn and closing the laptop lid decided it was bed time. She left the office and entered her bedroom. It was while she was brushing her teeth at her en-suite sink that she received the next vision of the people she once called family.

A woman with long red hair pinned back in a neat bun was sitting behind a dark coloured wooden desk. Mai stood at her shoulder. She was typing on a black keyboard and Mai could see a medical report. The patient, a 7 year old boy, had apparently broken an arm falling out off the roof of the house he'd climbed up on. He was lucky it wasn't his neck. The date and time on the computer screen put the vision as taking place as 10:43 am on May 9th. The shrill sound of a phone rang out and the woman paused her typing to pick up a sleek cell phone sitting on the desk to the left.

"Hello, you've reached Ayoko Matzusaki... Lin-san! Long time, no see!... You are?... Of course! I'll see you then!..."

Mai wasn't able to hear the other side of the phone call but thankfully Ayoko opened up a calendar planner on her computer and selected the date May 12th. She typed "catch up at SPR office" into the 11 am time slot.

The vision changed then flicking between other members of the old SPR team. A long haired male with brown hair in a temple. A blonde haired male in priest garb in a church office. A dark haired woman in a pale blue kimono having her make up retouched while a director talked in one ear about the next segment for filming. A dark haired male pushing a pair of glasses up the bridge of his nose while he read reports at his desk. Mai watched as each one answered a phone call, exclaiming in surprise and confirming attendance to a meeting. The only person Mai didn't get a vision of, was herself.

Mai closed her eyes, sighed again, and finished preparing for bed. She wasn't sure what the lack of vision of herself meant. Whether, she was deliberately not being called or whether they just had no contact information to find her. Either could be true. She'd have to wait for the next vision to be sure.

It was time for bed. Plenty of time to figure out the missing pieces of the puzzle another time and between the cold case and the missing teenage girl case, Mai had plenty of work to get on with tomorrow as it was.